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Alternative Learning Platforms for Agri-Students through e-Mediation: An initiative of agMOOCs
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Abstract
Agricultural education in India is
offered
through a network of 75 State Agricultural
Universities,
f
ive
Deemed Universities
, four
Central Universities with faculty of Agriculture,
three
Central Agricultural Universities
and
few privately owned colleges of agriculture affiliated
to traditional sta
te universities.
Each
Agricultural University
has
a number of constituent
colleges.
However, p
aucity of quality faculty
has
remained
an
emerging issue.
S
pecialization of
the faculty also matter
s
while imparting education.
Providing q
uality
inputs to the
learners spread
over
large geographical area demands e
-
Mediation.
One such platform was created by
Commonwealth of Learning
(COL)
and Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur entitled
“agMOOCs”
in 2015
.The
courses offered through the platform h
a
ve
attracted participa
nts
from
eve
ry state of India and seven countries.
The paper
is a
partial
analysis of
the efforts of
agMOOC
s
in penetrating agricultural education system as an alternative platform for students of
agriculture
and allied sciences
. More than
tw
o
lakh
learners have accessed courses
so far
. The
feedback of learners is
highly
encouraging.
So far the author
s
ha
ve
offered t
hree
courses
in
agMOOC
s
platform
during 2017 and 2018
. The
highest
number of learners registered in
a course
was 48
84
. There is
an
increasing trend in number of registrations on the platform, which shows
effectiveness of
the
course
s
and penetration among agricultural fraternity.
Age of majority
registered learners was up
to 24 years (76 per cent). More than 65 per cent offered courses to
enhance their knowledge. Home was the most preferred place of access (65 per cent). About 60
percent learners preferred the
agMOOCs
app to access course contents. Gender and preference of
app are not independent of each other, Gender and age of participants are not independent,
there
was no
association between range of learners and relevancy of quiz. There exists association
between range of learners and pace of content delivery. //Paper ID 40
Subject
Country
India
Region
Asia
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Date
2019-09
ORCID
Corporate Author
Editor
Publisher
Commonwealth of Learning (COL)